BENGALURU: Oftentimes, I am told poetry is for those who can afford leisure. Even on social media, I have found people making sarcastic remarks on poets, saying how useless their plight is. I get this great urge to narrate to these people how poems have changed the world and influenced lives; how poets like Langston Hughes, Adrienne Rich and Allen Ginsberg altered the course of history with their words. Instead, let me tell you the story of a poem.
James Patrick Kinney and his family lived in Cheviot, a township on the west side of Cincinnati, Ohio during the civil rights movement in USA, during the 1960s. Back then, the town had a law, stating that no black person was allowed to move on its streets after dark.
James Kinney and his friends thought this law was shameful and asked the city council to abolish it. The council told them that since no black family lived in Cheviot at that point, it will stay, opining that any black person on the streets after dark was up to no good. Kinney and his group managed to have a family of black American activists move to Cheviot and helped them settle there. They approached the council again and asked to abolish the law, under new circumstances. The council had to abolish it.
However, Kinney was extremely saddened with the way the all-white community in Cheviot reacted to this ‘change’. It was then that he decided to share with them a poem that he had written, titled The Cold Within. It is a tale of six people trapped in a cold place during winter. The fire keeping them warm is about to die and each of them has a wooden log. However, all of them refuse to offer it for their own reasons. A white woman sees a black man in the group and does not offer the log.
The next man sees none from his religious group among those gathered. The third man is very poor and holds back, as he envies the rich. The fourth one, a rich man, does not want to give anything to the ‘unworthy’ poor. The black man in the group thinks it is his chance to take revenge on white people. The last man is too selfish to help if there is no benefit in return. None of them is ready to let go, and in the end, are found frozen to death with logs tightly clutched in their hands.
Effectively portraying the futility and stupidity of racism and bigotry, this poem depicts some of the issues that divide human beings and equates the coldness in people’s hearts to death. The Cold Within is one of the most shared poems to this day. Says a lot about our present circumstances.
This is how a poem makes an impact. Poets employ incredible means to explore the human psyche and present their findings in a succinct manner. From Shakespeare to various modern political and counter-culture movements, poetry has played a major part in changing views of society across the world. Poems have made a real difference.